


Help

by TheSmudgyOne



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Dark!Noah, Gen, Ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-09 11:17:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1980903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSmudgyOne/pseuds/TheSmudgyOne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sort of AU: What would have happened if Gansey, Blue, and Ronan had slightly different reactions after discovering that Noah was dead. </p><p>  <i>Gansey and Blue walked into Monmouth and discovered a very large amount of someone's blood.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Help

**Author's Note:**

> TRC and all characters belong to Maggie Stiefvater.

It was the first time Blue had been back to Monmouth since they found out about Noah. Gansey had picked her up from 300 Fox Way, and he was humming with energy. He had spent days wandering around Monmouth, shouting questions into the air, and getting nothing. But surely, with Blue's energy, Noah would come. And they would get answers.

Once they had answers, then Gansey knew what to do. Everything would click back into place, the gears of his brain would start turning - and he could finally help Noah.

He opened the trunk and they started unloading some library books Gansey had picked up on ley line rituals. Blue fumbled a pile of dusty books.  
"Don't be nervous," he told Blue.  
"About..." she looked down at the book. "Welsh mythology? Is that a thing I should be nervous about?"  
"Not about _that,_ " Gansey said.  
"Oh," Blue said. Her mouth firmed up into a line. "I don't mind. He can use my energy, whatever he needs. I want to help."  
"That's brave of you."  
"Not really." She shrugged. "Sharing energy isn't what scares me. Do you want me to hold those while you unlock the door?"

It was a golden summer afternoon. And Blue did not seem alarmed. Blue was telling him to go ahead. So he went ahead.

He opened the door. And he and Blue walked into Monmouth and discovered not a ghost, but a very large amount of someone's blood. 

*

Red, vivid, horrible. There was blood splattered all over the floor. Blood on the furniture. Red speckled walls. An impossibly large, dark pool seeping across the center of the main floor.  
Gansey spent exactly three heartbeats frozen, cold, thudding out the name: _Ronan, Ronan, Ronan._ Then he moved.

"Call 911!" He shoved his phone into Blue's hand. Then he dashed for the stairs, dodging black puddles. In the background, Blue was saying,  
"Monmouth Manufacturing, there's blood all over the- oh, I'm so sorry. I- Never mind. No need for an ambulance."  
Gansey, almost to the stairs, whirled.    
 _"What?"_

Blue looked weirdly calm, like someone in one of Helen's yoga instructional videos.  
"I'm really sorry," she said into the phone "It turned out to be a prank."  
"GIVE ME THE-" Gansey lunged at her, but Blue vanished the phone in the folds of her weird feather-covered clothes. "Ronan!" he waved his hands ineffectually. He couldn't form sentences, he just kept saying, "Ronan!"  
Blue hung up the phone.   
"Look," she said, pointing at the pool of blood.

Gansey looked.   
"It's blood! What am I looking at?"  
She had her head tilted to one side like a terrier. "Do you smell blood?"  
Obediently, he sniffed. Popcorn, from last night's midnight snack. Rubber cement drying on his Henrietta model. Some sweaty laundry. Pollen.  
And he had one of those moments like on archaeological digs, where he knew exactly where to look with no explanation of why or how. He looked up.  
Noah was standing in the rafters, drenched in blood. Bloody gash on his face. Bloody clothes. Impossible amounts of red.   
He opened his mouth, his glistening red lips, the dripping-  
Then he flickered and vanished.

*

For the next two minutes, Gansey ran through Monmouth, shouting,  
"Noah! Noah!" All the blood was gone, and so was any trace of Noah. When he turned to see Blue curled on the sofa like a kitten in a thunderstorm, he said, "don't you want to help him?"

Blue blinked like he'd just spoken in a different language.  
"Of course i do. But-"  
"Stand up! He is here and we have to get him to tell us who killed him!"  
As soon as he said it, he knew Blue would scowl and refuse. That was what Blue did, when given an order. But, looking as surprised as Gansey felt, she uncurled and stood up.

"Noah?" she said. "Noah, we're listening. You can use my energy if you like."  
"Tell us who killed you!" Gansey boomed, projecting like the lead in a play in a large auditorium.

The space in the doorway to Gansey's room flickered. Yes, flickered, like a screen. It flickered red - flick. Flick. Then there were three seconds of a silent, still, red Noah with his head bashed in - then he was gone again.

"Noah, talk to us!"  
The middle of Gansey's model of Henrietta lit up red with splatters of blood. It spread slowly, seeping, curling lovingly into the corners of the paper. The paper even bent and sagged slightly as it would from the weight of real liquid. Gansey walked over and reached out a hand to touch the model, but then he pulled it back. He couldn't do it. He was afraid of what he would feel.   
He watched as the model slowly drooped and crumpled, looking drenched and red.

Gansey closed his eyes. The air was buzzing. Buzzed like - tv static? No. Buzzed like - electricity! _No._ Buzzed like - _say it._ Like bees.

"O-KAY!"   
Gansey took a breath, then walked over and planted both his hands firmly on Blue's shoulders. Some distant part of his brain knew how dramatic, how much it looked like he was in a bad play. But he held tight. His fingers pressed painfully into the loose, knobby crochet of her sweater.  
"Here is what we have to do," He said. "We have to think logically. Noah is upset because of the memory of his murder, the discovery of-"  
"I know!" Blue raised her hands, possibly to clap them over her ears.  
Gansey let go of her shoulders.   
"Right. But we have to find out who killed him. That's what will stop this."

Blue shook her head.   
"How do we get him to tell us?" She pressed her hand over her mouth. "We aren't psychic, Gansey. We aren't anything, okay? Or at least, I'm not. I'm just- useless!"

"First, let's try talking." Gansey strode into the center of the room. He looked for signs of Noah - where would he be? It was best to pick one point. Gansey tilted his face up to Noah's doorway. He folded his hands like he did when giving a presentation to the class. It wasn't strictly necessary, but it was comfortable.  
He used his Class Presentation voice, too. He had chosen it carefully. Firm enough to command the attention of a room of chattering Aglionby boys, but still warm and appealing. It was the right sort of voice for talking to a ghost.

"Noah Czerny," he said, "this is Gansey, here with Blue Sargent. We are your friends."  
A blurry gray cloud began to appear in front of Gansey. Slowly, the form of Noah appeared. His clothes were torn. His skin splattered. All caked with mud and dirt. He looked, as far as Gansey could tell, the way he would have looked right after being killed. Gansey put his hands in his pockets and squeezed them in his fists.

"We are here to help you," He continued. "If you tell us who murdered you, we can set police proceedings in motion to bring you to justice as expeditiously as possible."  
"And you can use my energy, Noah! I'll do whatever I can to help you be able to tell us!" Blue added.  
"So," Gansey said. "Can you tell us who is responsible for your death?"

He waited. For one second, there was nothing but the buzz. Then:  
 _Bees._  
Noah was still in front of Gansey, but now he was a skeleton. A skeleton with a smashed-in skull - and he was crawling with bees. They clambered in and out of the ribs, the eyeholes, the mouth hole and nose hole and smashed-in dent in Noah's skull.   
Gansey stepped backwards. One step, then another, then he was tripping backwards - and the skeleton dissolved into sand on the floor, and Gansey was staring at a floor lamp, panting, drenched in sweat. 

"Sit down!" Blue said. There was a crack in her voice that threatened to turn into an earthquake. "Just sit down right now!"  
Gansey rubbed at his arms, slapped a prickle on the back of his neck. He didn't want to look so undone, but he couldn't help it. He glared at Blue.   
"Well, you're the psychic's daughter. You fix it."  
Blue's whole body tensed into a ball of muscle.  
"I'm useless, remember? If you want help, call a real psychic."

Gansey thought of a million things to say. One was: _i didn't mean it like that._ Another was: _i hadn't realized. You barely knew him but you love him like i do._ Another was just to say nothing, and go sit on the couch and fix her crochet sweater-thing so it sat on her shoulders right.  
What he said was,  
"I think I'll do just that."

He marched over to the coffee table, snatched up his phone, and called 300 Fox Way. Maura answered the phone on the second ring.  
"Good evening, Gansey. I've been expecting your call." 

Gansey felt that not-unpleasant sensation he got whenever he had a brush with Real Magic - the one where the world tilted and everything looked bright again. There was a quote about that, about how seeing a golden apple reminded you of the amazement you once felt that apples were red. Even in the swirl of horror about Noah, he felt it. Then he wondered if Maura knew he was feeling it. 

"I'm calling about our friend Noah," He said. Surely she already knew that, too. Was it better to simply acknowledge this? He grabbed a mint leaf from his pocket and started mashing it between his fingers. "i'm sure you're aware of the situation."  
"Yes." Maura's tone was hard to read, but certainly didn't seem like she'd already called 911.

"Noah, he's-" Gansey looked around, looked at the space in the center of the room where noah had hovered, giant and terrible. "We have to help him. Fast. And to help him, we have to know who killed him. And you can help with that."

There was a very long pause. he couldn't hear clear sounds on the other end of the line, but he pictured her in the process of making a mug of tea.  
"I can," Maura said, "but I won't."

Gansey started pacing furiously. He injected his words with such a furious surge of politeness they sounded like they cut with a knife.   
"While I respect your wish to refrain from meddling in Blue's life, her friend is in great distress. He was murdered. And you must understand that it is essential to bring that murderer to justice immediately in order to restore Blue's friend to a more peaceful state." 

He sounded like a combination between a politician and a kindergarten teacher. He didn't care. With one hand, he squeezed the bridge of his nose. The buzzing in the room was giving his skin a crawling feeling. He wanted to swat as his arms, to run to the sink and blast the cold tap over them, to rip off his t-shirt and scrape at the skin.

"That's not what needs to be done," Maura said. Then she hung up.

Gansey looked over at blue. Everything was hazy at the edges. Was it just him, or was the smell of pollen sickening?   
"Your mother just hung up on me," he said.  
Blue picked at her sweater.   
"If I were her, and you talked to me like that, I would have put your soul in a bottle and left it in your school locker."

Gansey walked over to the nearest wall and pressed his palms flat against it, his forehead against the metal. It was too warm, and it smelled like rust, which smelled too much like blood. He couldn't think what the right thing to do was. Neither his classical education nor his hunt for dead Welsh kings had prepared him for helping a friend who suddenly turned out to be dead. He needed someone competent.

The door to Monmouth clanged open.  
Ronan strode in, looking smug as a snake, and tossed a black plastic contraption on the couch next to Blue. She gave a small jolt, like she'd been stung by something.

"Radar detector!" he crowed. Then he looked around, frowning. He rubbed his ear. Chainsaw screeched and clutched his shoulder.   
"What the fuck, Gansey? Is your latest leyline-hunting piece of shit making that sound? Turn it off, it's making my ears bleed."

Gansey did not know what to say. He stared at the radar detector like Ronan had just brought in a robot from another planet.  
"Then I'll turn it off!" Ronan snarled. "I'm going upstairs." 

He reached for the radar detector, but something was happening to it. It looked for a second like maybe the shiny black coating was shriveling off, like a snake getting ready to shed skin. But then it rippled and solidified, and words began to form, crawling all over the black plastic. They were raised like scars: 

_MURDERED MURDERED MURDERED MURDERED_

Ronan yanked his hand back.  
"Blue, get up," he said calmly. "And don't freak the fuck out."  
"Why do you say don't- AUGH!" Blue leaped up from the couch. The leather was ripping, words clawing there way out from underneath. 

_MURDERED MURDERED MURDERED MURDERED MURDERED_

Ronan sighed with the deep exasperation of one who never, ever, would deign to freak the fuck out.   
"Noah, would you turn down the static? That shit is killing my head." He addressed this to the ceiling.

Gansey went over and took his arm.   
"Don't do that. Don't talk like that. You'll freak him out more. Look, we- we have to figure out how to help."  
"Help?" Ronan's face twisted like he smelled something vaguely spoiled. "Oh, hell, what did you do?"  
"I already called Maura Sargent, but she wouldn't tell me who killed him. Do you have any idea who might have?" He felt some vague hope that Ronan's criminal tendencies might give him information of this sort.

Ronan marched over and picked up the creepy radar detector with its crawling words, without a second thought. He pointed it at Gansey.   
"Boom. You're off. I just pressed your off switch. Go sit on the sofa and wait for instructions."  
"What-"  
"GO."  
Gansey sat down on the couch.  
"Ronan, you should really put that down!" Blue said.  
Ronan sneered.  
"This thing can do even less harm to me than you can," he said. "Now, are you going to help or what?"

Tears welled up in Blue's eyes. Gansey saw her pretend to wipe her nose. One was spilling down her cheek.  
"You're making her cry!" Gansey shouted at Ronan.  
"Why?" Ronan asked Blue flatly. Just like that. Like he was asking why a car had broken down.

Blue said,  
"I can't do anything to help. You want one of the other residents of 300 Fox Way."  
Ronan said,  
"Oh, shut up. You've been listening to Gansey too long. Now, tell me: do you think that Noah wants the weirdo with the floaty hair, or the weirdo who does flying yoga, or your mother who is less weird but is still twice his age? OR, do you think he wants the one who he cuddles like a kitten in the backseat of the car?   
Now, get up off your ass and help me."  
Ronan went over to the Not A Kitchen area and grabbed a takeout menu and a phone.

This was too much for Gansey. Ronan was allowed to be an asshole sometimes, but not right now. He snatched the takeout menu away from Ronan.  
"You're wasting time!" Gansey said. "What is this? Noah hates pizza."

Blue stood up. Gansey was pleased to see that she looked as indignant as he felt. She shouted at Ronan: "you're going to make him think that we don't care he was murdered!"  
"Exactly," Ronan said.

Blue blinked. Like some bizarre magic spell, all the tension went out of her muscles. Gansey watched in astonishment as she said, "oh," and then, "cheese or pepperoni?"

Gansey had had enough. He grabbed Ronan's phone out of his hand and threw it - smashed it - against the wall of Monmouth.

And all at once - poof - his head cleared. His skin stopped crawling and buzzing. For a moment, he was blissfully relieved. But then he realized: the buzzing was gone. That meant Noah was gone.  
"Happy now?" Ronan asked.

Five minutes later, Ronan and Blue were hard at work on the art of timewasting, and Gansey was following their instructions. He did not understand what he was doing or why.  
"Gansey, go get a blanket to toss over this creepy sofa."  
"Gansey, turn on the TV and find some terrible reality show to watch."  
"Gansey, tell us what kind of pizza you like."

Gansey moved like a robot. His whole body ached. Noah, Noah, Noah. He just wanted Noah back. He didn't know what to do, but he needed to keep going. So he did what they said.  
But then Blue said,  
"Okay, now we're all going to play pool."  
And Gansey said,  
"Pool. Okay, you need to explain this to me."

Ronan opened his mouth, but Blue said,  
"No. I've got this." She turned the full force of her glare on Gansey.  
"Okay, listen up, President Cell Phone," she said.  
"President what?"  
"Tell me something about Noah."

Gansey thought. Robotically, he said. "His last name's Czerny. He's been dead for seven years. He was an Aglionby student. He was murdered by a blow to the head. He drove-"  
"Shut up," Blue said. "Give me your phone." she held out her hand. When Gansey didn't give it to her, she snapped her fingers. "Come on, come on." When she had the phone, she tapped at the screen, then held something up to Gansey. 

It was a picture of Gansey's room, every inch covered in Glitter, from when Blue and Noah had filled a kiddie pool with glitter and jumped in it. Gansey was in the corner of the photo, wiping glitter out of his eyes and shouting.   
Gansey looked at the photo for almost a full minute. Then he looked up at Blue and Ronan. Both of them were watching him, waiting. 

"Oh," Gansey said.   
He looked around helplessly. What did he normally _do?_ He felt like when photographers told you to "act natural! It's a candid shot!"  
He walked around the main floor of Monmouth in a slow circle, past the sink full of dirty dishes in the kitchen, past the TV and messy pile of video games, past the Henrietta model.

"Does he just hang out here all day?" Gansey asked.   
Blue shrugged. Ronan said,  
"Sometimes he does the dishes."  
"He doesn't even eat!" Gansey burst out.  
"Yeah, kind of makes us look like dicks," Ronan said.

Gansey considered the dusty space.   
"Too bad he's not here right now. I was just planning on driving over to the pet store-"  
"Animal shelter!" Blue interrupted.   
Gansey rolled his eyes. Was this really the time? He was trying here.  
"Pet stores use puppy mills," Blue said.   
"Animal shelter," Gansey amended, glaring at her, "to look and see if there was a puppy that struck my fancy. I guess he won't be able to give any input."  
They all waited. No Noah.  
Gansey kept going.

"And then I was going to....braid Blue's hair. Ronan and I. We're really bad at it, though. And they were thinking about putting some colorful streaks in mine. And for Ronan, we're....we're going to draw on his head with window marker!"  
"I wouldn't let you draw on my head with window marker even if it brought Noah back from the dead," Ronan interjected.

They all stood around, waiting nGansey aimlessly fluffing up Blue's hair. No Noah. So Gansey just kept talking. He would keep talking all night if he had to.  
"And then I was going to....watch Casper. Because I hear it's really accurate about what it's like to be a ghost."

Slowly, a blurry Noah appeared, sitting cross-legged on the sofa. He seemed very small and folded-up, and his face looked mournful and pleading, and everything in his eyes said _can we just pretend?_

"Hey, Noah," Blue said. She went and sat down next to him. Ronan flopped into the armchair across from them.  
Gansey felt overwhelming shame. This was Noah. Not Noah Czerny, Murdered Boy. He wanted to fall to the ground and apologize. But that would not be the right thing to do.   
Instead, he just said,  
"I'll hold Ronan in a headlock if you wanna draw on his head."

Noah looked at Gansey, smudgy and mournful.  
"I don't want a pity puppy," he said.  
"Okay," Gansey said. "No puppy. Right."  
"Of course I want a puppy. I just don't want a PITY puppy."  
"Got it. Big difference there," Gansey said, nodding.

"And," Noah said in a much smaller voice, "I'm not going to answer any questions." He bit his lip and looked at Gansey. He looked very smudgy and dark.   
Gansey said,   
"Okay." He said it like he really meant it. Because he did.   
And Noah looked brighter.


End file.
